Censorship
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "She makes a note to ask Erik about this later." Set during First Class: Raven finds Charles in the library late at night and reflects on what he could be up to.


This is my first _X-Men_ story to prominently feature Raven/Mystique. I like her, but she's always sort of puzzled me as a character. Since seeing _Days of Future Past_, I think I understand her a little better. Please let me know if you think I did her justice here. This is set during_ First Class_ \- my take on when Raven's feelings towards Charles (and Erik) first started to shift.

(For my own reference: 83rd fanfiction, 6th story for _X-Men_.)

* * *

It's like their positions have reversed from when they first met, Raven muses as she walks down the dark hall with her ice cream. This time, Charles is the one rummaging around in the middle of the night, and she's the one coming to investigate. She was in the kitchen, digging a late-night snack out of the freezer, when she heard noises coming from the library, and she knew immediately that it was her brother. Who else would get up at this hour to _read_? As she draws closer, the noises become clearer: the flutter of pages being turned, the _thump_ of books being stacked in a pile, a soft _oof_ as Charles bumped into the corner of a table.

"Charles?" she asks, pushing the library door open with her free hand.

He looks up at her from his books, and she smiles to see how rumpled his pajamas are, and how disheveled his hair is. He looks as if he'd been lying in bed, trying to sleep at least, and Raven wondered why he was awake. It had been an exhausting day. They and the other mutants had just arrived here from the CIA base that afternoon, and it had taken Charles and Raven all evening to show everyone around the mansion.

"I hope I didn't wake you," Charles says, but then he spots the ice cream carton in her hand and rolls his eyes. "Oh, never mind, I see you were already up eating ice cream at midnight again. Only _you_, Raven, would have a craving at this hour for chocolate ice cream with..." He pauses and peers closer. "...are those rainbow sprinkles?"

Raven smirks as she walks over to him and flops down on the sofa. "And only _you_, Charles, would get up this late to raid a _library_ instead of a kitchen. What are you doing, anyway?" she asks teasingly. "Researching a second thesis because your first one wasn't boring enough?"

"No, I'm just reorganizing some books," Charles answers. His tone is casual, but as he says it, he adds another book to a pile on an endtable with slow, careful deliberation, and Raven can tell that he's thinking seriously about something.

"Don't tell me you couldn't sleep because you were worried about whether this library would pass a Dewey Decimal test," she says, spooning more ice cream into her mouth.

But Charles doesn't answer. Instead he turns to the nearest shelf and runs his hand across the spines of the books, perusing their titles, then picks another one out and adds it to the pile. Raven frowns. Even Charles isn't geeky enough that he would reorganize the library in the middle of the night just for fun. He must have something on his mind - why hasn't he already told her what it is?

Concerned, she decides to come right out and ask him. "Charles, what's wrong?"

He lays one hand on top of the stack of books that he's made. "I don't want these out here," he says slowly. "I'm taking them to my room. Will you help me carry some?"

Raven had barely glanced at the books before - everything that Charles reads is always so boring - but now, she takes a proper look at their titles and covers for the first time. To her surprise, they aren't science books, her brother's usual fare, but history books. There are a few about World War II, but most of them are specifically about the Holocaust.

Her yellow eyes are a bit wider when she looks back at Charles. "Why don't you want them out here?" she asks.

Raven has rarely ever seen Charles hesitate, but he does now. He paces back and forth in front of the sofa for a moment, then takes a deep breath and sits down next to her. "Raven, listen," he says in an urgent whisper, even though there's no one nearby, or even awake, to overhear them, "I don't want you to mention this to _anyone_, all right? But I... well... the truth is, I don't want these books in a place where Erik might come across them."

Raven frowns. She has the distinct impression that she's missing something. "But... why not?"

"I can't - oh, I don't know why." Charles pauses, chuckles a bit, and rubs his face with one hand. "Honestly, I don't, Raven. I just... don't think it would be a good idea." He pauses again, tapping his fingers on top of the books in a slow, thoughtful way. "I'm going to put them in my closet. Will you help me carry some?" he asks her again.

For a moment, Raven just looks at him. She can tell that there's more to it, something he isn't telling her, and she considers pressing him about it... but she doesn't. She's used to this sort of behavior from her brother. There's always been so much that Charles doesn't want her to hear, so much that he doesn't think she can handle. When they were children, he used to stay up late on the weekends to watch Alfred Hitchcock movies on TV, but she still had to go to bed at the usual time. _You shouldn't be watching it anyway, Raven,_ he would say as she trudged upstairs in her pajamas. _It's too scary for you._ He'd only recently let her come along with him to bars, where he was always picking up women, but if she even let some cute boy buy her a drink, it meant a lecture from him on the way home. _He's all wrong for you anyway, Raven, _he would say pointedly. _He only wanted one thing._ But she loved Charles, and she still felt so indebted to him - he'd given her food when she hungry, given her a family when she had no one - that she'd never called him out on how controlling he could be.

Maybe their positions haven't reversed from when they first met. Maybe nothing's changed at all.

"Yeah, sure," she finally answers. They each pick up a stack of books, and as Raven follows Charles down the hall to his room, she makes a mental note to ask Erik about this later... if she can work up the nerve. She doesn't know if she would be able to just go up to him and blurt out, _Hey, Erik, why wouldn't Charles want you seeing books about the Holocaust?_ Erik has such an edge to him, a hardness to his personality that makes him intimidating to even talk to.

Raven looks down at the cover of the Holocaust book in her hands - it shows a stock photo of barbed wire in front of ashy plumes of smoke - and her stomach turns with an uneasy suspicion that maybe _this_ is where that hard edge in Erik comes from. He has an accent, after all, and a German name. But she also suspects that if she does ask Erik about it, he'll give her an honest answer. He'll tell her the truth, no matter how ugly it might be. Raven can already tell that Erik wouldn't try to shield her from unpleasant things, like Charles always has, and despite his moody, distant personality, that makes him strangely appealing.

**FIN**


End file.
